


The Workings of Destiny

by hrhrionastar



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-31 00:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrhrionastar/pseuds/hrhrionastar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series, Kahlan solves a murder in the Midlands, Cara has a baby in D'Hara, Nicci researches prophecies in the Old World, and Richard rescues a prophet in Westland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Workings of Destiny

**Author's Note:**

> For a [legendland](http://legendland.livejournal.com/) challenge.
> 
> Prompts: begins with: a prophet at the beginning; a mysterious death; a kidnapping; a spirit of an element. Contains: a jar of honey; a cape; a belt; a bathtub; a helmet; a fake item (suicide note); a child's toy; a book of prophecies; a cake; a non-Confessor dress. Ends with: during an eclipse; mid-winter snow fall; a rain storm; hottest day of summer.

"Hello? Sir Hugo?"  
  
The door of the mayor's house swung open. It was a modest building; Sir Hugo didn't care to flaunt luxuries his people were without.  
  
"My name is Kahlan Amnell. The Mother Confessor sent me. She requests and requires you render me all due assistance in the performance of my duties."  
  
Kahlan spoke the formal words a trifle uncertainly. Sir Hugo might not squander his gold on fripperies, as she had heard the nobles of D'Hara did, but she still ought to have met someone by now. Where were the servants?  
  
This was to have been a routine visit; the Mother Confessor had finally declared Kahlan of sufficient age and experience to begin making the long journeys to dispense justice for which the Order of Confessors was famous.  
  
She was accompanied only by her wizard, an anxious novice called Ysel. He hovered at her elbow as she wandered through the empty rooms.  
  
The mayor was in the library. He lay facedown on the shaggy bearskin rug. Even now, Kahlan was no stranger to death. The scent of it hung in the air, a dark miasma of decay.  
  
Kahlan swallowed hard.  
  


* * *

  
  
The girls screamed and struggled. Fear had driven every other thought from their young minds, but nonetheless, one girl stared, with wide brown eyes, at Cara's nakedness.  
  
Her body was heavy with child, and it was too hot for her leathers even had they still fit.  
  
But she would not be excluded from her duties just for that.  
  
The girl didn't flinch even when Cara bared her lips in what was anything but a smile. She would survive the training, Cara thought; she had courage.  
  
Dahlia, at Cara's side, watched the girls impassively.  
  
"I should be in the training rooms," Cara hissed. How she hated this forced inaction.  
  
Her son kicked, and she put a hand to her swollen stomach.  
  
"You should be in bed," Dahlia countered.  
  
The girl, the one who would be a true mistress of the agiel someday, had dropped something: a doll.  
  
It was a perfectly ordinary toy, but Cara's eyes filled with tears.  
  
That girl with the brown eyes would never play with the doll again.  
  
"Cara?" Dahlia asked, concerned. She traced gentle fingers down the arc of Cara's spine. Her touch was reassuring.  
  
Cara had to swallow a lump in her throat. Keeper curse the mood swings…She blinked her eyes clear. "It's nothing," she insisted.  
  


* * *

  
  
Cold air swirled inside the Palace of the Prophets from the open window, and coalesced into a translucent shape.  
  
It spoke, with Sister Verna's voice: "We have searched the length of the Midlands, Prelate. The War Wizard is not here."  
  
"We must find him!" The Prelate got up and began to pace her study. "Several prophecies depend upon it!"  
  
The spirit of air wobbled at bit, as if Verna were considering how best to phrase her next complaint.  
  
"It may not be the Creator's will that he be revealed to us," she said at last.  
  
Nicci kept her eyes discreetly lowered. It would not do to reveal to the Prelate just how little interest she herself had in the Creator's will.  
  
"It _is_ the earnest wish of the Creator," the Prelate asserted. "Find him, Sister Verna. Find the War Wizard, or all will be lost."  
  


* * *

  
  
Shouts rang out from the marketplace. Richard had been strolling slowly along, admiring the summer brilliance of the trees and munching an apple, but now his steps quickened.  
  
There was a man in the middle of the square. He was filthy, dressed in rags, and cowering in the center of a crowd that screamed, "Witch! Monster! We don't want your kind here!"  
  
A rock sailed out of the crowd and struck the man's cheek. Richard saw blood.  
  
Richard dropped the apple core, and reached for the dagger sheathed at his belt. Then he thought better of what had been no more than a vague impulse. The dagger was as worn with use as the belt, but it had never been used for anything more violent than hunting rabbits for Richard's father to make into stew. Besides, the last thing the poor man in the square needed was more violence.  
  
"Make way, please! Excuse me!" Richard called, using his best woods' guide voice.  
  
The crowd moved reluctantly aside. "Chase, what's going on?" Richard demanded, when he'd won through to the man in rags.  
  
"He's been making predictions," Chase explained apologetically. "He said Tom's cow wouldn't give any more milk, and she hasn't. People are worried he'll put a hex on a child next."  
  
"I'm a prophet," the man excused himself.  
  
Richard exchanged a grim look of understanding with Chase. Prophets were not welcome in Hartland.  
  


* * *

  
"Are you sure we ought to bother the Mother Confessor with this?" Ysel asked, fidgeting with the objects on Sir Hugo's desk. He picked up a candlestick and then set it down. "If it was a suicide—"  
  
Kahlan rose gracefully to her feet, from where she had been kneeling beside the body. Ysel was far too squeamish to perform the necessary investigation; even now, he had put the heavy desk between himself and the corpse.  
  
"It wasn't a suicide," Kahlan said flatly. "The note you found was a fake."  
  
Ysel picked up the scrap of parchment and squinted at it. "How you tell?" he demanded. "Your powers—"  
  
"My powers have nothing to do with it," Kahlan snapped. There was blood on her dark skirts, and she was more unnerved by the murder than she was willing to admit. "No one writes a suicide note on a tiny bit of torn parchment."  
  
"It still seems flimsy evidence," Ysel objected. He picked up a jar half-full of honey; apparently, Sir Hugo had enjoyed the occasional sweet.  
  
"Just so," Kahlan agreed tightly. She stooped, and picked up the object she'd found lying beside Sir Hugo's body. "But then there's this."  
  
"Is that—?" Ysel gasped. He understood as quickly as she had, Kahlan would give him that much. "But then—if they've dared come this far, then this means—"  
  
He dropped the jar of honey; Kahlan caught it with her free hand just before it would have crashed to the rug, and replaced it on the desk.  
  
Sir Hugo had been stabbed with a dagger bearing the ornately formalized markings of the Dragon Corps, most elite of the D'Haran army.  
  
"War," Kahlan finished for Ysel.  
  
Absently, she wiped her honeyed fingers against her skirt.  
  


* * *

  
  
Cara eased her awkward body further into the bathtub. Normally, she bathed with her sisters in the temple pools, but they were no longer cold enough for her.  
  
Dahlia had driven the temple slaves to distraction, but as a result, Cara had an ice water bath to soothe her discomfort. The heat would have been torment enough without her pregnancy.  
  
She leaned her head back and shut her eyes. It would not be long now, before her son was born.  
  
A Rahl. He would succeed his father, and rule the empire. Cara knew she was the mother of a future king.  
  
But she could not raise him herself, not even had Darken permitted it. She was a mistress of the Mord'Sith, and her duty lay here—with Lord Rahl, and with her sisters.  
  
Ice poured over Cara's breasts. She shivered in pleasure, and opened her eyes in time to see Dahlia set aside the helmet she'd doubtless borrowed from one of the soldiers and filled with ice chips.  
  
"Join me?" Cara suggested. It was phrased as a question, but by the answering light in Dahlia's eyes, she knew it for a demand.  
  
Cara watched appreciatively, as Dahlia skinned out of her leathers. Her braid swung forward over her breasts as she stepped into the bath. Her body was flushed and hot.  
  
"The ice will melt," Cara smirked, sliding her legs along Dahlia's.  
  
Dahlia laughed.  
  
Cara gasped in sudden shock, as pain rippled through her stomach. She could feel her muscles contracting. Her labor had begun.  
  


* * *

  
  
Nicci stood in the courtyard of the palace. A shrill wind whistled through the darkness, and she drew her cape closer about her body. The gown of a Sister of the Light was silk, and totally insufficient for weather like this. Nicci cursed whoever had designed it.  
  
Her cape at least was warm; she cuddled her face into the fur, and strode toward the empty corner of the courtyard where she voiced her true prayers.  
  
"Keeper," Nicci called. There were more formal words of summoning, but she typically dispensed with them. It was enough that the Keeper heard.  
  
"The Prelate waits for the War Wizard," Nicci called into the cold night. "Her hero." Her voice grew bitter.  
  
"PATIENCE, SISTER NICCI," the Keeper's voice boomed. "YOU WILL MEET THE WAR WIZARD, AND TEACH HIM TO SERVE ME."  
  


* * *

  
"You have a great destiny ahead of you, Richard Cypher."  
  
Richard paid little attention to the prophet bent over his palm. He'd rescued the man from a mob, and convinced Anna to donate one of her dresses to the project of disguising him so he could leave Hartland without any further trouble.  
  
Even now, Zedd the Crazy Chicken Man (as Richard and Michael had been calling the old man for years) was altering Anna's green lace gown for the prophet.  
  
Richard tugged free of the prophet's grip, and rummaged through the kitchen until he found what was left of Michael's birthday cake. He got each of them a slice, perched on the edge of the table, and regarded the man he'd rescued.  
  
"What made you decide to be a prophet?" he asked.  
  
"I do as the Creator wills," the man replied, sounding almost surprised. "I don't decide anything."  
  
Richard stared. It sounded like a nightmare.  
  


* * *

  
  
Rain fell in a light, soothing patter as Kahlan spoke the formal words of the funeral service for Sir Hugo. Water soaked into her hood and trickled down her neck. Her hair would be a mess by the time this was over.  
  
Sir Hugo's death was attributed to suicide. It was a lie.  
  
At first, Kahlan had not believed Ysel when he told her that the Mother Confessor had spoken to him, or rather to his master Hinjus, who had then communicated with Ysel by scrying in a bucket of water. The Mother Confessor's orders made no sense.  
  
Kahlan was not to make any accusation that might focus further D'Haran attention upon Sir Hugo's village, the Midlands, or Confessors. She was to ignore the murder.  
  
And, Kahlan supposed bitterly, just hope that Darken Rahl, the despotic ruler of D'Hara, simply did not notice those who did not oppose him. As a strategy, it would not have recommended itself to Kahlan even without the unfairness of burdening Sir Hugo's memory with the sin of suicide.  
  
The rain began to fall harder. Wind whistled through the trees.  
  
Kahlan had told Ysel Sir Hugo's murder meant war was coming. But the truth was, war with D'Hara was not some distant danger. It was already happening. The Mother Confessor knew that, had lived it since before Kahlan was born.  
  
And all of it could be traced back to Darken Rahl.  
  
Kahlan had passed through fury and was now in the calm waters of conviction. Someday, there would be a reckoning between herself and the tyrant king of D'Hara.  
  


* * *

  
"My lord?"  
  
Cara scarcely knew what she was asking. The labor was over, her son was born—and her son was gone. She'd heard his cries, but she had not held him in her arms, before he was taken away.  
  
"You have done well, Mistress Cara," Darken said, resting a hand on her sweat-dampened hair. "Sleep."  
  
The summer heat was incredible. Cara knew that in parts of D'Hara whole forests burned.  
  
It was impossible that she could rest in such miserable warmth.  
  
Her eyes closed and her breathing slowed anyway.  
  


* * *

  
  
Snowflakes whirled past the window, like tiny stars.  
  
Nicci turned another page in the book of prophecy open on her lap. The War Wizard would come in a time of great turmoil, and he would be the saving of the world.  
  
Just which world remained unclear.  
  
Nicci shut the book. Prophecies were all very well, but sometimes she had to rely on her intuition.  
  
The Keeper had said that she would teach the War Wizard. Soon, she hoped.  
  
And then the Prelate would finally know that Nicci was no meek child, to endure her 'lessons' as if she had no will of her own. Nicci stood and stared out the window at the winter world. It was all there—the roots of the Keeper's victory, the bones of Nicci's past.  
  
The snow hid everything.  
  


* * *

  
  
"Look," Zedd the Crazy Chicken Man commanded.  
  
Obediently, Richard squinted at the sky. The sun was halfway obscured by a dark shape that seemed almost to be eating it.  
  
"The prophet would have called this a portent of something," Richard commented, to conceal his own unease.  
  
"An eclipse such as this one comes only once every several hundred years," Zedd agreed. "Isn't that so, Clara?" he added, to his chicken.  
  
"Thank you, for helping me get him out of town," Richard said. "I don't believe for a minute that he really put a hex on Tom's cow, but people can be a little unreasonable sometimes."  
  
Zedd snorted a surprised laugh, possibly at the thought that people were only a little unreasonable.  
  
"You don't think he really had any power, do you?" Richard asked, not sure why he was seeking reassurance from someone who talked to his chickens.  
  
"Destiny works in mysterious ways," Zedd tossed off casually. Then his gaze sharpened on Richard.  
  
The sun was almost completely obscured now.  
  
Richard eyed the unfamiliar celestial vision without favor.  
  
"I don't believe in destiny," he said firmly.


End file.
